Here's a post that's been in my fingertips for a while. This past New Year's eve, my girlfriend and I decided to cook a huge meal. And at the center of this meal would be a huge lobster. The only problem was that neither of us had cooked lobster before. After speaking with some people and doing some online research, we decided that it wouldn't be that tough to do. And it wasn't.

However, nothing prepared me for the trip to Ralphs ($8.99/lb with Ralphs Club). The lobsters were looking very comfortable on the bottom of the tank. Until the fish dude stuck a wooden claw down there and upset them. He then picked one out, put him on the scale (~3lbs), and placed him in a plastic bag. After poking holes in the bag, he handed it to me. There I was going through the aisles of Ralphs with a huge live lobster in my cart.

One of the lessons I learned during my research was to place the lobster in the freezer for 10 minutes before dumping him in. They say this numbs his senses so that he puts up less of a fight in the pot (it seemed to work). The other lesson I learned was that one easy way to keep the tail from curling up was to stick a skewer in (while it's alive, of course). On paper, this makes a lot of sense. However, as I learned, and as you will see, you really need a large pot to implement this one.

Peter, Bjorn and John's Writer's Block has been rocking my iPod for quite some time and definitely makes my top ten list of 06. Just read the great news that PBJ will be playing the Roxy on February 1st. Victoria Bergsman (of the mad whistling skills on Young Folks) to open.